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Dr. Siyaram Pandey 2015 Progress Report (2013 Grant)

Posted on: January 22nd, 2016

Dr. Siyaram Pandey

Dr. Siyaram Pandey

Department Chemistry & Biochemistry, University of Windsor

Preclinical evaluation of anti-cancer activity of long pepper (piper longum) extract (LPE) in
in-vitro, in-vivo and ex-vivo models of leukemia and other aggressive human carcinoma cells:
Identification and enrichment of factors from LPE responsible for inducing apoptosis in cancer
cells.

EVIDENCE OF PROGRESS

In the past two years of this project, we successfully extracted long pepper fruits with ethanol to prepare an extract that showed very selective ability to kill cancer cells, sparing non-cancer normal cells. We also discovered that there are many compounds within this extract that may act in concert to selectively induce cell suicide program in our cancer cell models. We have carried out this work in many different cancer cell models, including Bone cancer, Colon cancer, ovarian cancer, melanoma, pancreatic cancer, glioblastoma, lymphoma and leukemia.

We also tested this extract in mice that were transplanted with human colon cancer cells. The long pepper extract was given orally to mice over two months. The results indicated that this extract was well tolerated (no toxic effect) in mice and it halted the grown of the transplanted tumor. We have identified a few compounds in this extract that may be responsible for its anticancer activity. Interestingly, we found that purified single compound could not be as effective as the extract, indicating that several compounds present in the extract might be working together to kill cancer cells. We have also studied the effect of the long pepper extract in combination with other natural health products, in order to observe any enhancement of the anticancer effect.

We have a lot of new and exciting results that show the benefit of this extract alone and in combination with other extracts. This is in an attempt to limit the occurrence of any toxicity and reduce the ability of the cancer cells to become resistant to the treatment. This project emphasizes the benefit of a complex polychemical mixture, compared to a single isolated agent for the treatment of a complex disease like cancer. This project is now at a very interesting stage, where we can apply to Health Canada for clinical studies in human patients.